Remember when we used to think The Economist was the be-all-and-end-all? November 23, 2010

Let’s play a game: which countries are missing? I spot (in hundreds of millions unaccounted for):

1 Pakistani

3 Indonesian

13 Chinese

2 Brazilian

1 Russian

1 Mexican

It’s safe to say that this will add up to at least a third of the population of the earth. Including a bunch of countries that really don’t want to talk about this problem. Who thinks China’s AIDS transmission rate is slowing?

Imagine if they colored the parts of the map they didn’t know about bright blue, or jet black, to represent the unknowable, instead of light gray to avoid catching the eye.